Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint the Council allowed enforcement agents to act unfairly toward her. This is because there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by investigating this further.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council allowed its enforcement agents to pursue her in a threatening and aggressive manner despite her vulnerabilities. She says this caused her significant distress, and impacted her health and wellbeing.
2. Ms X is seeking an apology, compensation, contact details of the individual enforcement agent and a change in the Council’s processes.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Ms X complained the Council has allowed enforcement agents to pursue her aggressively and threateningly despite her vulnerability.
7. The law allows Council’s to appoint enforcement agents to recover debts, but sets out processes which must be followed.
8. The enforcement agents responded to Ms X’s complaint and confirmed the processes were followed by the Council before the debt was passed to the agents.
9. Regulations set out how much an enforcement agent can charge when recovering debt and the stages they must follow. The enforcement agent must issue a notice of enforcement. The fee for this stage is £75.
10. At the next stage the agent can take control of goods. The fee for this stage is £235.
11. The agents sent a notice of enforcement in June 2025 and asked for payment to be made within two weeks. When they did not receive a response, it moved to the second stage of its process and added £235 to the debt in August 2025.
12. The agent contacted Ms X by telephone, and she said she had not received any written communications as she had moved house. She informed the agent she was vulnerable and would provide supporting evidence.
13. The enforcement agents passed the matter to its welfare team, who called her to offer support and put the matter on hold to allow Ms X to dispute the fine with the Council.
14. In its complaint response, the agents, on behalf of the Council, apologised for any upset called during the call with the agent. It also acknowledged Ms X had not received the written communications and removed the £235 fee from her debt.
15. Once the agents were aware of Ms X’s vulnerability, it has changed its approach to allow for this and has removed its enforcement stage fee.
16. Ms X has been given the opportunity to go back and dispute the fine with the Council as she would have had if she received the written communications about the debt.
17. The Council relied on the address held by the DVLA for the car it issued a penalty charge notice to. It is unlikely we would consider it to be at fault in doing this.
18. The process followed by the enforcement agents is as we would expect. Any issue with the tone of the conversation with the agent has been apologised for, and the enforcement fee has been waived as a gesture of goodwill.
19. If we were to investigate this further, it is not likely we would achieve anything above what the agents have already offered here

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Final decision

20. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we would not achieve a worthwhile outcome if we did.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman